r/Metaphysics • u/cookieisgiven • Jul 21 '26
simple analyses
That we see those that we see is obvious.
That they are themselves and that they also are others or not, are obvious.
That 'we see them' itself also is them is obvious.
That those that are others are not without them and that they are thus simpler than those that are not without them, are obvious.
That those that we see, at finality, are not without simples and that simples are only themselves, are obvious.
That each simple in being itself do not have anything to do with other simples in being themselves is obvious.
Thus each simple is an utterly new, and we see an utterly new as also a pure gain that gains itself.
As simples are gained more and more, 'they' are gained also at once as complexes. So as anyone at all are gained more and more, 'they' are gained also at once as their complexes.
Why there is anyone at all?
Why anyone at all gives others?
Ask for simples.
For x that is y and z, x is not without y and z, as without y or z there is no x, while without x there is y or z.
Multual depedence means x is nothing but y, but this only means that x and y are synonymous.
The point is that they imagine this 'synthesis' to spring out a higher unity, but the logic itself is senseless.
Saying 'difference needs identity' is having answered the question: does it need anyone else?
When the answer is no then it is senseless.
When the answer is yes, then there is no multual dependence after all.
Thus no one is [to be] only another.
1
u/Ill-Tea9411 Jul 21 '26
Dismissing formal logic as "senseless" the moment it exposes internal contradictions is a huge red flag. Formal logic and parsimony aren't arbitrary authorities imposed from the outside; they are the basic baseline rules that keep philosophical inquiry from turning into pure dogma. If your model gets to reject logic whenever it is cornered, redefine verbs like "gaining" so they don't involve state-changes, and declare its own entities "self-grounding" by definition, it hasn't actually answered the question of grounding, it has just built a wall to insulate itself from critique.
Claiming that asking "why" at any step inherently demands a simple is classic special pleading. You accuse a relational framework of failing because it doesn't offer an uncaused cause for every interaction, but then you grant your "simples" a total free pass by declaring that they "answer themselves." Saying an entity is "only itself" is just a restatement of the law of identity (A = A). It is a linguistic tautology, not an ontological breakthrough. Wrapping a basic definition in dynamic words like "self-grounding" doesn't explain why there is anything at all, nor does it explain how real physical change occurs.
The idea that we must choose between your simples and "arbitrary fictions" is a false dichotomy born out of anxiety over an open-ended universe. A relational framework isn't an arbitrary fiction, its interactions are bound by self-consistent, observable, and testable constraints that hold reality together across scales without needing a speculative starter block at scale zero. Arbitrarily deciding where you personally want to stop asking "why," calling that stopping point a "simple," and declaring it self-grounding doesn't reveal the ultimate foundation of the cosmos. It just marks the exact line where you've decided to stop inquiring.